Battle of the Mega-Retailers: Will Walmart or Amazon Win Black Friday This Year?

Where will you be shopping this Black Friday? DealNews polled 2,471 shoppers and found the vast majority — 83% — plan to spend Black Friday online at Amazon.com. It's no surprise, as Amazon dominates the online shopping space and, last year, beat out brick-and-mortar retailers with the convenience of shopping from home as well as highly competitive cost-cutting.

But most shoppers aren't planning on kicking off the holiday season with only one shopping destination. Consequently, those polled were able to select multiple retailers. While Amazon might dominate the online space, Walmart is still at the top for brick-and-mortar stores, with 62% of respondents planning on heading there (narrowly beating out Target at 61% and Best Buy at 57%).

Amazon vs. Walmart may be the battle of shopping titans, but the struggle between these two retailers is representative of the ongoing fight for physical stores to stay relevant in an increasingly digital world. And while Walmart — and other retailers that rely on physical storefronts — has been funneling money into growing its e-commerce business, that hasn't stopped the retailer from doing big business offline. In 2014, an estimated 133.7 million Americans shopped on Black Friday weekend, spending over $50 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. The online shoppers were 39.5% of those people, meaning the majority still hit the pavement across the holiday weekend.

While tech-savvy shoppers may gravitate toward online shopping, with brick-and-mortar retailers offering their own online experience — often with special deals or free shipping to catch the interest of online-only shoppers — physical storefronts and online retailers are frequently competing for the same shoppers. So how does one store win out above the others? If we look at past sales, we see that it's all about offering good deals to catch consumers' eyes and competitive price-cutting to keep them from heading to other stores.

Looking Back at Black Friday 2014

Even though last Black Friday brought some extremely impressive sales numbers, they still represented a retail slump from 2013. Part of the reason for these poor sales was fewer shoppers: Stores saw 5.1 million fewer visitors on Black Friday itself and a total of 5% fewer shoppers over the holiday weekend. This is in part due to Black Friday sales starting earlier and running later every year, making the weekend totals less impressive. However, e-commerce (and its Cyber Monday sales) also plays a role as it continues to take a bite out of in-store retail efforts.

Last Black Friday, Walmart had solid deals to lure customers in, price matched Amazon, and offered free shipping on its most popular items.

So What Will We See on Black Friday?

We expect many of the same strategies to make a comeback this year as both big retailers aim to win the day. Both Amazon and Walmart will be offering a strong selection of deals to get customers in the door, with price matching and price undercutting helping the two retailers jockey for position. Continuing recent years' trends, Black Friday sales are likely to start earlier and last longer, giving consumers more time to take advantage of deals. However, doorbusters and limited-time offers (both Walmart and Amazon will be offering a variety of staggered sales) will continue to offer some of the best deals.

In the end, more deals and a wider time period to shop in is great for consumers — and as the competition continues, we'll only see more bargains. As to who will win and who will lose on Black Friday this year, we'll have to wait until November to find out.

Readers, do you think Amazon or Walmart will win out in Black Friday sales this year? Where are you planning to shop? Let us know in the comments below!

Originally working in IT, Elizabeth now writes on tech, gaming, and general consumer issues. Her articles have appeared in USA Today, Time, AOL, PriceGrabber, and more. She has been one of DealNews' most regular contributors since 2013, researching everything from vacuums to renters insurance to help consumers.

DealNews may be compensated by companies mentioned in this article.
Please note that, although prices sometimes fluctuate or expire
unexpectedly, all products and deals mentioned in this feature were
available at the lowest total price we could find at the time of
publication (unless otherwise specified).

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1 comment

lreddiablo

Walmart sucks. Cramer had a good analysis of it on his show, bad customer service and poorly stocked items. I almost always leave the store disappointed with up to 1/3 of the things I was looking for coming to empty shelf spaces.